Scrap Chaps
by Tonzura123
Summary: There's not enough time to write everything I'd like to write, so here's where the ideas and drabbles go. Enjoy! Now up: the exchange rate is, frankly, insulting.
1. Cain to Dinner

**Deleted from Monochrome. Post P.E. Cain and his driver are OC's.**

2435 Finch Street, Year 1945

"Right on this street, here," Peter said as he leaned over the front of the seat and pointed, "It's the second house on the left."

"Shall I park up the street, sir?"

Cain was already pulling his pack over one shoulder as the car gently glided around the bend in the road, "That's sounds perfect, Cameron."

"Very well, sir." The driver's sharp eyes landed on an empty square of space beside the sidewalk and expertly slid the car into place, "Will you need help with your baggage, sir?"

Peter laughed aloud, giddiness overriding etiquette, and Cain took that as his cue.

"That won't be necessary, Cameron. We can get it."

But Cameron, who hadn't known Peter as long as Cain, didn't realize the blonds' animation was from being so close to his family. Or, more importantly, that Peter was really a powerful King in a magical land called Narnia. To Cameron, Peter Pevensie was an impoverished wunderkind who had managed to attend Hartbee's by marks alone, and was unfit to spend time with Cain, or to influence how Cain decided to use his family's' servants. The energy that poured out of Peter during the drive was all Cameron had to judge the boy by and the older man actually broke his own protocol by turning fully around in the seat to look directly into Cain's eye.

"It's no trouble, sir. It would be my honor to assist."

But that incipient loyalty to his friends was growing stronger every day, and Cain chose that moment to bend his protocol with an easy grin, reaching out to pat the shoulder of an official chauffeur uniform in a chummy manner.

"What kind of rugby player would I be, if I couldn't lift my own bags?"

Peter caught his eye, grinning widely, and fairly leaped from the car with his suitcase slung over his back, standing impatiently for Cain to catch up.

"Have a nice week's vacation, Cameron," Jacobs called without looking back, and exited the vehicle.

"Hurry it up, would you?" his friend called from the boot, practically dancing on the spot with his eyes glued to the little house with the white-wash gate down the street.

"One month," Cain said slowly, inserting a spare key into the lock of the boot, "You've been separated from your family from one month. That's still too soon a reunion for my family."

"Too long for mine," Peter smiled, tugging another of Cain's bags in his free hand, "They'll be happy to see you, you know."

"First things, first," Cain scowled suddenly, "I need to have a little talk with your brother. We haven't even come close to winning a game since he was with us..."

There didn't seem to be a single thing that could make Peter frown that day, and this passing comment was no exception, even though it came dangerously close to broaching why Edmund left Hartbee's.

The tall young man's face split with happiness, and he pounded Cain on the back as they crossed the street and opened the little white-washed gate to 2435 Finch Street. The gate creaked sideways to a grey flag-stone path with a loosely defined garden exploding from the English dirt. To be sure- the garden was nothing compared to the ones that abounded at Cain's mansion back home. But here there was an unquestionable beauty to the wild array of lavender, poppies, sunflowers, and hyssop. They tumbled over each other and climbed the gates, honeybees humming and floating around like nursemaids, putting their wards to rest in the beds. Cain had a fleeting moment, as they walked down the stone path to the red front door, to wonder if the garden had always looked like this, or if it was styled after another garden from another place...

Then the front door was thrown open and the auburn-haired Lucy Pevensie launched herself into Peter's arms with a girlish squeal, making the homeward young man drop his belongings just in time to catch her up from the pathway.

"Peter! PeterPeterPeter! You're back!" She kissed him repeatedly over his face, and Peter was spinning her while Cain looked on with a frozen look of uncertain bemusement.

"We've all missed you so much! I was just baking- sorry, that's flour on your shirt, now. But no matter!" And she proceeded to kiss her brother's cheek once more, while being kissed in return.

"Peter!" cried a new voice, and Cain turned to look up the small set of stairs, uncertainty refreshing itself as Susan Pevensie made herself known to the joyous party. As tall and breath-taking as ever, she swept down to her siblings and was instantly captured by her brother's strong arms. Peter was quick to kiss her cheek, but Susan was more careful in placing hers, and Cain realized it might have something to do with the bright red lipstick she wore.

"Cain," she smiled, when Peter had traded her out for Lucy again, swinging the smaller girl up onto his hip.

"Susan." He smiled back and took her offered hand, though was unsure of what he was intended to do with it. For a moment, he did nothing but hold her hand in his, but swiftly released it when Lucy signaled over Susan's shoulder that he was intended to kiss it.

Peter grinned, and Lucy laughed, and Susan seemed a bit put-out.

"Let's get all of this inside, shall we?" Peter asked, picking up his two heavy bags with a single hand while keeping his sister perched on his side, "Where's Ed gotten off to?"

While Peter forged the way into the small London home, Susan fell into step with Cain.

"I'm so glad you decided to stay the week with us."

"Me, too."

And really, Thomas would be eating all of this up- To spend a week of his life with the enigmatic Pevensies already felt like something straight from a dream. Whether in public or in private, they always seemed genuinely glad to be with one another. Cain didn't know if he would be able to be as chipper if he suddenly went from his wealthy and powerful situation to a single, small house in London.

"You'll be staying in Peter and Edmund's room, we made up a space for Peter so that you could have the bed-"

"-I can take the floor," Cain said, startled that he hadn't even considered his presence might displace someone else.

This time, Susan's smile was more like Cain remembered. It was suddenly much easier to smile back.

"No one will be sleeping on the floor," she assured him, "Peter and Edmund are used to bunking together."

"...Oh."

"Or you could even use our parents' bed until they get back later this week. They've been on a trip for the past few days. They called, just before you arrived, actually..."

And as Susan chattered into his ear, they made their way thought the front door into a small foyer, a simple library-study mishmash on the left, a staircase on the right leading up and out of sight. Between the two was a thin hallway that led back to a sunlit kitchen, and beyond, Cain could make out another garden, more wild and full than the one in front.

Peter had dropped his bags by the foot of the stairs, so Cain did likewise, and meekly trailed him after as they squeezed through the hall to the flour-coated kitchen, the back door to which Peter promptly threw open and bounded out of again.

"Ed!" Peter called, jogging to a small woodshed at the far back of the yard. It was covered in ivy and roses, and it seemed that the trellises nailed to its sides were the only thing keeping the tiny building up. Peter, rather bravely, in Cain's opinion, pounded a fist on the dilapidated door.

"Edmund! Open up!"

BANG!

There was a sound like gunfire, and a waft of black smoke curled out from under the door. Coughing started up from the inside while Peter tore the door off the bolt and a slim figure stumbled out, hiding his face into a crooked arm.

"Ed- Edmund, are you all right?" Peter caught up his brother by the chin and shook him a little.

"What on earth were you doing, Pevensie?" Cain demanded, fanning the air as the smoke cleared, "Trying to make a bomb?"

The younger Pevensie brother's face was covered in black dirt, his eyes covered by rounded aviator goggles, which left clear white circles around his dark eyes when he drew them up to rest on his brow. Along with the long apron, work gloves, and the mussed hair, the younger boy looked a lot like a mad scientist.

"Just a little too much kick," Edmund wheezed, brushing his brother's hands off of his face, "Gerroff! I'm fine, Peter."

"I'll be the judge of that!" the older boy declared, keeping his hold on the coughing and sooty figure. And Cain had thought Edmund had been prone to protectiveness.

"This is probably the fifth time," Lucy announced, as she rejoined them with a damp cloth to wipe at her brother's smudged face. Edmund's nose wrinkled under her ministrations, but didn't push her away.

"She's been giving me trouble lately. I think the belt needs replacement."

"She?" wondered Peter, looking to Lucy.

"I think the petroleum does, too," Lucy teased, making Edmund frown.

"She's a... car?" Cain guessed, just able to make out the form of tyres though the grayish air.

"A motorized bicycle," Edmund said proudly, using Peter's shoulder to stand, "I've been building her from scraps."

"He's been raiding our neighbour's rubbish bins for weeks."

"I always asked permission first!"

Lucy rolled her eyes, like it was an old argument, and Edmund gripped his brother's arm excitedly.

"Here, I want to show her to you-" he started dragging Peter into the somewhat aired-out shed.

The place was lined with workbenches with abandoned hammers and wing nuts. Smoky windows made the lighting dim, but the hole in the roof allowed a shaft of sun to hit the wall with a large unintelligible set of blueprints, presumably for the bike itself.

Edmund was energetically pointing out different features of his invention, from the handle bars to the tailpipe. To Cain, it really looked like any old manual bicycle. But the chain ran through a small compartment, presumably where the engine was held, and the seat was wider and more cushioned, the tyres fatter and with more tread. The assortment of different metals was precarious, to say the least.

"I've been testing different types of fuel," Edmund was saying, "So far, kerosene has run the best. Strange, I know," he told them, when their faces twisted in surprise, "But I thought I'd better try everything. What you just had the fortune of seeing was my test of bacon grease. Snappish stuff. Imagine what it does to your innards."

"You aren't..." Peter said slowly, letting his little brother tug at him to look at different aspects of the bike, "You aren't going to... sell her, are you?"

"You know I'm not," Edmund returned.

Peter groaned.

"It looks a little... dangerous," Cain supplied, sensing that was what Peter was driving at, "You sure you're healed up enough to ride?" Not that a healthy boy would come out of a wreck with that monstrosity any better than an injured one...

Edmund snorted, "Building her is all I'm going to do until this-" he jabbed a thumb in a gesture to his spine "-is all fixed up. About another two weeks and I should be as straight-backed as I've ever been. But never mind that." He swung a long leg over the bike's side, and straddled the seat, thumbing the handlebars and pointing to what looked like a compasses welded to the center.

"I added this to help navigate, though it'd probably be easier to just to use the sun, and this-" He flicked a small device on the right bar with his index finger, a small gauge popping up. "-This measures kilometers per hour, the engine sends a reading through this wire and- Well. It's all pretty technical, but it basically operates just like any other bike you'd find in a shop."

Cain thought it might be a little too hideous to be sold in a shop, but felt it would be inconsiderate to say so to "her" creator.

"It's... really, really good, Ed," Peter struggled, trying to find a way to appease his genuine pride in an intelligent brother, and genuine anxiety that said intelligence might lead to further injury.

Edmund's grin was wicked. "That's not even the best of it."

"What's the best of it?" Peter asked warily, as he eyed the welded medley of metal that held the seat to the rest of the frame.

Something in Edmund's face gentled as he looked at his brother, and he swung his leg back off of the bike, "Another time. You just came home, after all."

The brothers smiled at each other for another moment, and then Edmund turned and seemed to realize Cain was there for the first time.

"Jacobs! How are you?"

"Better than you, apparently. You get time off from classes and you use it to be productive?"

"Everyone needs a hobby, I suppose- And how're the Hartbee Hawks doing lately? I heard the rematch with the Beavers didn't go over too well."

The memory alone was enough to bring the scowl back to Cain's face, "Beavers play dirty."

"That we can attest to," Lucy quipped, "You boys should head back inside. I've had Susan watch the biscuits for me so they wouldn't burn."

Edmund swore he'd give up the bike completely if Lucy would promise to make him biscuits everyday for the rest of his life, and when Lucy bluntly refused, Peter groaned anew.

OooOooOooOooO

"That was delicious," Cain said, surprised that he'd actually enjoyed a dinner that was cooked from cheaper store-bought supplies, "I don't think I've ever tasted anything like it!"

"It's an old recipe," Susan said, collecting his cleared plate with a pleased smile, "From our great-grandmother."

"She must have been quite the cook."

"We never met her," Peter cut in, while covering his own portion in a heavy amount of relish, "But Grandmother never stops talking about how much better the food was when she was a child."

"Let's not talk about Grandmother," Edmund said, grabbing back the relish from Peter and getting up to put it back into the icebox, "Just thinking about her is exhausting."

Lucy saw Cain's look and quickly explained;

"Grandmother is from old blood and isn't so kind as to let us forget. She likes to play favourites. Each of us has been her favourite one at some point or another."

"She liked pitting us against each other so we'd fight over her," Edmund said, rejoining them by partly collapsing back into his chair, "Most of it is due to the fact that our Grandfather died while we were kids. She's lonely. So she holds expensive gifts over our heads and tries to make us dance for them."

"It used to work," Susan added.

Edmund's nose scrunched, his dark brows drawing a V. "Why do you think I'm trying to get this bike finished on my own?"

"Why?" Peter asked, "What's she using this time?"

"Would you believe it? The old Bentley."

Peter half-laughed, half-gaped, more than a little thrown, "She swore she'd never give that up! She used to let us sit in it just to tell us we'd never get it!"

"Yeah? Well she knows nothing else works anymore, so she's gone and pulled out the stops." Edmund leaned back and spread his arms out wide, "Behold: Her newest favorite!"

"Poor Ed."

"I'm her little lamb," Edmund continued darkly as he recalled the blandishment, "Her precious _grandbaby_."

Peter grimaced, and Lucy consolingly patted his arm.

"What's worse!" Edmund exclaimed.

"Worse? Aslan's mane, Ed, what else could the old lady do?"

"Let me tell you, brother: Lucy, of all people, is suddenly a flirty, carrot-topped menace!"

_"What?"_

The young girl grinned roguishly and turned to Cain in a companionable manner, "She always has been bad with insults."

"Susan is a socially inept, below average student that gets by on good-looks!"

Susan frowned, clearly more bothered by the statement than she should like, "I am falling behind a little in my classes..."

"Is that what the lipstick is for? Susan..."

"I know, I know! It's stupid," she cut her older brother off, already scrubbing at her lips with a handkerchief, "I shouldn't let that woman get to me."

"She shouldn't be insulting you in the first place," Cain told her strongly, feeling a hot anger on behalf of his new friends, "How would she like it?"

"Not at all," his classmate answered, hackles visibly rising, "She'd probably disown the first person to try."

"And you, dear brother mine, are (get this) trying to weasel your way into her heart by going to medical school!"

"That one was a stretch," Lucy pointed out, "She always has a harder time trying to put down Peter."

"Lion alive," Peter muttered, rubbing at this eyes with the palms of his hands, "Can we just... forget that she exists for a few hours?"

"Gladly."

And surprisingly enough, they did. Cain watched as the conversation swung immediately to Narnia and Aslan and their adventures as King and Queens, one of them starting, the others interjecting to fill in part of the story. At times, small revelations would be made, and Cain felt strange, that such close siblings would still have more to discover about one another. Years of living through a strange world, and they could still reveal dimensions to their persons that would surprise the others.

Thomas would be green with envy.

"I can hardly believe some of this," Cain admitted.

They'd moved to the sitting room, a room across from the study that Cain had initially missed upon his entrance to the house. It was a small room, but the Pevensies seemed fine with sharing the space, doubling up on chairs and sprawling across the carpets in a manner resembling cats.

"Some of it?" Edmund wondered, from where he was leaning against Peter's shin, "You'd think that after you accept the reality of magic, anything would be open to you."

"You faced off with a entire Calormene navy, armed with nothing but a small caravel and a squadron of mermaids?"

"That's Merfolk, and the arrival of the Sharks helped to damage their ships. The Calormene navy wasn't exactly _powerful_. They just had an impressive number of ships," Susan corrected, sounding a little stung that the idea of two girls being able to come out of such odds _alive _was unbelievable.

"Besides," Lucy giggled, "Calormenes aren't good swimmers. They're a desert nation. Once the idea got across to them that they might get wet, they pretty much turned tail. A lot of it was waving swords and threatening with such thick accents that it was impossible to tell what they were saying."

"Not for me, it wasn't," the older sister bit her lip, "I'm glad you couldn't make that out."

"And let's not forget certain brothers that heard their sisters were in danger and summoned our navy to attack," Edmund recanted to the ceiling.

Peter grinned in a way Cain had only seen once before- and that had been before he tried to kill their old Headmaster.

"Was the Narnian navy very good?"

"The best," Peter said proudly. "Not even Archenland could compete. The navy was virtually every marine Animal under our banner. And our army couldn't be contested either, because we had our own version of the Royal Air force integrated with it."

"Brilliant. Who thought of that?"

"Peter, at First Beruna," Edmund shifted a little, his back obviously aching from his poor posture, "We needed a way to hit them before they hit us, and we decided dropping boulders from a thousand feet up might just do the trick."

"And who dropped the boulders?"

"The Gryphons," all four said, looking at him as though it should have been obvious. Cain supposed that, to them, it was.

"The use of Gryphons as opening attack was sort of a signature move of our army for a long time," Edmund explained, using his hands to demonstrate the movements of the fighting, "It was psychology, mostly. Our enemies would know it was coming, but there was never anything they could really do to about it. We had armour developed so that it was harder to arrows to take down our Gryphons. It wasn't until the Telmarine catapults that boulders could be thrown back."

"But that is an entirely different story for an entirely different evening!"

Susan stood, looking pointedly at the grandfather clock beside the sofa. Its face read ten-forty-one. They'd been sitting for hours just talking and Cain hadn't even noticed the time.

"I can't wait to hear about it," he confessed, and the Pevensies smiled as they rose for bed.


	2. Discoveries Now Ancient Reload

**Discoveries Now Ancient**

**Originally published for thehowlingwolf, with a wish for a happy Christmas, this story has been reuploaded with a more traditional twist.**

**K plus. Peter/ OC **

**~A romance all too mushy to ever exist.~**

It is a snowy evening and Jane is reading to Peter from her Biology text about the structure of the human DNA- a phenomenal scientific discovery that still has scientists everywhere practically leaping with glee even two decades after its initial founding.

In between bouts of Peter thinking to himself that Jane was making more and more sense genetically, Peter won't think at all.

He sits on the old red couch of library's study room, with Jane sitting so closely that he can feel the heat her body is releasing due to the chemical reactions of her molecules. What sorts of reactions did skin like that have to go through, in order to retain such a perfect, creamy colour? Peter doesn't really care, as long as his pupils continue to admit light, the cones and rods in his eyes willingly shaping her image.

Jane finishes a section on ribonucleic acids, and smiles ironically up at him, as if apologizing for the blandness of the stuffy, intellectually-puffed words. Peter can't mind, though, because his own DNA renders him with excellent hearing, and he really, truly, adores hearing her voice lilt warmly around him, sinking like a teasing breeze through his auricle, drumming a sweet vibration around and around in the inner workings of the cochlea and semicircular canals...

Is this part of that ninety-eight percent of human DNA that is exactly the same as everyone else's? Or does she only sound like an angel to the two percent that makes Peter, _Peter?_

Jane shifts, so close Peter swears his epidermis will singe from the beautiful warm and moist air expelled from her alveoli, exchanging oxygen for carbon dioxide, mixing with her blood, with her genetics, breathing onto Peter. It makes him wish with an utter lunacy that somehow he could breathe in and make her even a small part of him.

Genetically, Peter can see her Scandinavian roots- the honey blonde hair, straight and pulled loosely back, really just dead skin cells that has been spun into gold. A genetic Rumplestiltskin that Peter finds himself praising fervently. Her mouth is full, collagen and sensitive skin flushed with that same blood- that same DNA- and Peter wonders if it is only her two percent of DNA that made her lips look so edible- A single enchanted bite that would send Peter reeling into oblivion, that one kiss that would wake him up from this genetic spell he was cast under.

Honey and cream and apple-red are in Jane's DNA, and Peter wants to know what genius put them there so that he can give them thanks for the feast set before him.

"Dr. Pevensie?" Jane teases, because she has eyes like Peter's, just as keen, laughing even though no DNA Peter knows of can place a smile in the eyes besides Jane's, and she knows that he isn't really thinking about the section of catalysts.

"Nurse?" Peter manages, and if his voice is scant, it's because his brain is failing to fire the synapses for his diaphragm to supply an adequate oxygen supply to his lungs, and for his tongue to unglue itself from the roof of his mouth.

"The Professor won't favour you anymore if you fail this test tomorrow," Jane says, and because her DNA recognizes an admirer while her intellect may not, Peter's sharp eyes can count the tremors of blood flowing through her jugular vein in the side of her creamy neck. It beats a little faster than Peter is used to, and the rhythm of it all entrances him.

Perhaps more synapses are firing that Peter thought, because suddenly his right triceps contracts and his hand is moving forwards, finger pads chock with nerve endings stirring against the cream of her neck.

It's so smooth, that Peter thinks it can't be solid. The electromagnetic field of her atoms can't be that strong, yet despite all appearances, the flesh is strong, not liquid, pliable but not without a returning force of its own. Another tremor vibrates through his nerves, but the warmth of Jane at his side does not diminish, and now he finds the mind to order his hand to stay there, in that comfortable spot above her pulsing life.

Jane continues reading in a voice so soft that Peter would not know her larynx was restricting in tune with her melodic notes if his hand did not feel the thrumming sway of violins in her throat. Laughter in her eyes... an orchestra in her voice...

Peter removes his hand, exchanging it with his lips.

...Sweet cream in her skin.

"Peter..."

He can taste his name, and everything that makes him who he is, is dancing at the sample of victory lingering on the tip of his tongue.

"Jane," he returns, and relishes the _tremolo_ of vocal chords as his lingering mouth tickles her pulse and her DNA dances against his skin, her laughter infecting him with genetic joy, and he finds his mouth smiling by rule of ancient code into the line of her jaw.

Another giggle, ticklish, and creamy fingers are gently lifting his head, bathing the fiery beat of constricting blood vessels in his cheekbones with cool fingers, as soft as her neck, and he kisses those, too.

"Studying?" A reminder. A request for guidance.

"Later," he insists, because the two percent that makes Peter, _Peter_, wants to explore the two percent that makes Jane, _Jane_, more than anything else in the world.

And maybe the two percent that makes Jane, _Jane_ wants to know him just as badly, because the she needs no further instruction.

As soon as his vocal folds are finished vibrating, her sternocleidomastoid muscles twist her head to the side and synapses are shooting in his own skull like a firework display, blinding both rods and cones inside of his eyes, his brain receiving no image but those tantalizing, apple-red lips that have just captured his, and feeling nothing but honey flowing through his fingers.

If he had been traveling by desert for forty years, he could not have been more parched, yet here was Jane, with the promise of Heaven in her very DNA.

'_Watson and Crick really have no idea_,' Peter finds himself thinking, as well as, '_I think I might just pass this test...'_

**~Where the red tape shows: An alternate ending. ~**

But whatever cloud of bliss he might have found himself sinking into is abruptly ruptured when the solid double doors fly open and crack against the lining bookshelves, with Cain Jacobs and Thomas Macintosh roaring through. Thomas turns red at the sight of Peter caught in mid-kiss, but Cain, who has a strange, briefcase corded to a telephone(1) pressed up against his ear is glaring quite malevolently at Jane.

"Found them!" he yells into the mouthpeice, and Peter's burning ears pick up the sound of garble from the other end. "With _what_?" Cain demands of the bizarre device, and Peter's larnyx re-animates.

"What _are_ you _doing?"_ He sits a little ways from Jane, but feels her hand alight on his arm, and it serves to instantly calm him.

"Oh, she's got him, all right," Thomas squeaks, and lifts a iron candlestick holder in front of him like it's his saving grace. "Hurry it up before she gets ideas!"

"Peter, why are your friends acting like this?" Jane wonders. Peter says;

"Why are you lot acting like this?"

"Don't they know it's rude to interrupt people when they're trying to have time alone?"

"Don't you two block-heads know we're trying to find time alone?"

The briefcase-telephone speaks again, almost ardently, and Cain winces. "Yeah," he agrees, "It's a tight hold."

"Tell them to leave, or you'll make them wish they'd never been born."

Thomas squeaks again as Peter jumps to his feet, but Cain throws out an arm and holds his flightly friend in place, "Steady, Tom."

"Get out of here," Peter growls, fists clenched, "Or I'll send the pair of you to an early grave."

Cain suddenly blanches at the phone. "Exorcize? I don't know how to exorcize." Peter thinks he hears a tinny voice from the ear peice say, '_Well, try!'_

"Great," says Cain, "Terrific. Peter- you're bewitched. She's got you under a spell, don't you see?"

"I'm flattered," remarks Jane from Peter's back. "I was always told I was such a plain little girl."

"Shut it, you."

"You leave her alone," snaps Peter, "And get off your high horse. I know spells. This is no spell. I like her. I think I might love her- What is it to you?"

"Do you keep relating everything about her to biology?" Cain asks suddenly. "Biology and food? 'Cause Edmund says that's rote for love spells."

"So what if I am? I'm a medical student," Peter is feeling rather hot around his collar, "And food is fantastic."

"This is ridiculous!" exclaims Jane, jumping from the couch to round on the instigators of this tedious interview. "Peter and I are in love! We kiss. We hold hands. We relate each other's beauty to agriculture. That's rote for _all_ love poems from every culture- Egypt, Japan, Germany, and wherever else. Why does that _bother_ you so much?" Her hand finds Peter's and he squeezes gently. "Why can't you just _leave us alone_?"

"We should leave them alone," says Thomas, candlestick drooping.

Cain shakes his shoulder. "Come off it, Thomas. We're not finished." He looks back at Peter holds his gaze for a moment, then holds out the telephone. "Here. If you're sure. At least talk to your brother so he understands.

"I'll take it!" says Jane, and snatches the phone out of Cain's hand before he can draw it back. She turns away from them all, "Hello, this is Jane, Peter's- What?" she asks. For a second, she neither speaks nor moves, but when she does, it is to throw the entire set of the phone- receiver, breifcase, and all, with all her strength away from her. It crashes on a short way off (rather dense with the most high-technology of the day) and everyone in the room can hear the clear, flowing exorcism that is not only in Old Narnian, but in the lilting tones of Lucy Pevensie.

"Stop it! Stop it!" shrieks Jane, backing away. She turns to Peter, clutching at his arms. "Stop them!"

But Peter is backing away a bit, because her full, apple-red lips are more like the puffy swell of a fish, her creamy skin a sallowed note of soured milk. Her hair is limp- patchy and mousy. Her blue eyes watery like a rodent. All in all, she is not a truly attractive creature. Yet this is not the true source of his discouragement.

"Not again!"

Cain steps closer, patting his distressed classmate on the back, "It's going to be all right, Pevensie."

"In Narnia, I can understand, but _here?_" Peter cries, "How many witches and magicians can there _be_ in a magic-less world? This whole love-potion nonsense was bad enough _there_!"

"Edmund told me his informants were picking up on more of them. I dunno- more portals between worlds cracking or something? He had Lucy make the call while we took care of you because its ten-times harder for a witch to enchant a girl as it is to enchant a boy."

"Good old, Ed," croaks Peter, collapsing back onto the couch and planting his face in his hands. "I wish I could drink at this age."

"Oh, I'm hideous again!" sobs Jane, pulling at her stringy hair at her relflection in the mirror above the fireplace, "I was so pretty! Why can't I be pretty?" And really, the blotchy patches of red popping up on her sallow skin while she cries is doing nothing to prompt relief from this notion. "You idiot!" She turns on Peter, throwing books from the side tables at his head that he valiantly tried to duck. "You blasted idiot!"

"That's enough!" Lucy's voice cuts through the ruckus like a shot, and all eyes turn to the discarded portable-phone. "Jane, I have no idea what you look like, but you're a ruddy good brain. I bet you're top of the class over there."

"I want to be _beautiful_," groans Jane, sinking to the floor and clutching at her face, "I'd give up all of that just to be beautiful."

"That makes _you_ the idiot," Lucy remarks. "I don't intend to be mean, Jane, but it's _that_ time of month for me and this is the _seventh_ time in my life that someone has tried to bewitch Peter (nevermind Edmund) into loving them. If you think being pretty for a few years will get you farther along than being brainy 'til you drop dead, then you're wrong. Agriculture? Good edible stuff. But it doesn't last, Jane. Nothing lasts. Lion's _Mane_, just once, can a girl have sense about this sort of thing?"

Jane hiccups, but says nothing, staring forlornly at the carpet. The three boys stare warily at the phone, cowed to silence by this feminine wrath.

"I'm coming to meet you," says Lucy suddenly, "Yes, I'm coming to meet you. This week. And you and I will talk and we'll be friends because you have a brain and I'm not in the mood to leave you to your own devices. Right now you need to go back to your rooms, wash your face, change into something comfortable and maybe drink a little milk before you go to bed."

"I'm... not tired," manages Jane, watery eyes looking in confused amazement at the phone.

"Yes, you are. Peter?"

"Yes, Lu?"

"You go to your room, too. Have Thomas walk you. Cain, go with Jane. All of you go to bed! Now, _I'm_ tired. I'll see you all later this week."

And because Lucy hangs up so succinctly, there is really nothing left for the four to do but follow her rather grumpy advice.

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><p><strong>AN: Dedicated to peanutmeg, with hopes that she feels better, and to anyone else that might be having an all-around sucky week. **

**As Always,**

**-Tonzura123**


	3. Monochrome Deleted Scene: Sunrise

"Sunrise"

Originally written for _Monochrome_, now a deleted drabble, posted here for your viewing pleasure.

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><p>"Ed," whispered a voice in my ear, "Ed, wake up."<p>

"What?"

"Come on- You've got to see this."

"Peter- What are you-"

A strong hand was tugging back my furs, grabbing hold of my arm and pulling with mighty force.

"Knock it off!"

"Edmund, come on! It'll be gone in a second." I struggled upwards and Peter helped me with his good hand. I scanned the hollow with bleary eyes, noting that Brigid was still buried under her blanket of wolfskins, the coals of the fire long cooled. Peter instistently ushered me out the front of the cave and around the oak before setting about climbing to the top of the small cliff face.

"Be careful!" I admonished, the dizzying thought of Peter losing his grip and plumetting down grating through my mind. But Peter was grinning down at me with such..._boyishness_, that I was compelled to follow him up.

And up.

And up still... Stopping only when he stopped and pointed out to everything beyond and below us:

Narnia cast in rose and fire.

The explosion of reds and pinks and oranges set the horizon ablaze with light, and stole my breath completely. A flock of birds evaporated from the tops of the Pine nearly three miles away, gusting in the cold breeze that fueled the fires of the sun. I could only stare out at Narnia's waking beauty, feeling as Aslan must have often felt- to look down from such heights, with such burning adoration in His heart. My shoulder was nudged, and I turned to my brother, whose face was split by the width of his smile.

"It's gorgeous, isn't it?"

I felt my mouth grin back, instinctual and natural, and turned back to the sunrise.

"Is it always like this?"

"I wake up to it every morning." He shifted, making to sit on the mossy stone beneath us, "It comes up just beyond my balcony and the light fills my room, so it's impossible to ignore. The Trees dance to welcome it and the Birds all start chattering at once. Sometimes I'll stand there and just listen, trying to pick out the separate songs..." he laughed, "I've never been_ able _to, but I suppose with time I'll get better at it."

"I've never seen it," I confessed, and eased myself to sit beside him, never removing my gaze from the view.

"Never?"

"Well, except for-" I cut off, thinking of a blood red sky and a tawney Lion filling my vision as we walked up a grassy knoll, "My window faces to the West. But the Woods cover the sunset."

A heavy weight settled around my shoulders, and it took me a moment to realize that it was the weight of Peter's arm. He pulled me against him for a moment, and we silently watched the last of the red fade to a warm pink, then a mottled purple, and then finally a brilliant blue. Clouds that had been stained by the spreading sun grew pale and pure. The sun began to warm the rock beneath us, around us, and I could feel a faint tingle of warmth grow on my cheeks. It was like resting against Aslan's side, when I was tucked under Peter's arm.

"You and I can do this in the mornings, if you like."

I turned and craned my head up to find his eyes, which were fixed on the treeline miles away.

"Should we invite the girls?" Was it selfish of me that I didn't really want to?

"I think..." said Peter slowly, "I think brothers should have some things that they do just as brothers."

"So, sword fighting, archery, debate classes- None of those are things we do together?"

"As Kings, we do those. But we're brothers first, Edmund. Before anything else, you and I are just two kids. Well," and Peter's voice slipped into a cadence I was beginning to recognize, "I'm still in charge no matter how you look at it, but..."

"Be in charge of this" I muttered, shoving him roughly off to the side.

Peter laughed honestly and something rose a little inside of me as well.

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><p>AN: Monochrome, Chapter Seventeen: The Hunter, will be posted soon!

As Always,

-Tonzura123


	4. Windows of Opportunity

**Windows of Opportunity**

**by Tonzura123**

A drabble-present for floppsyearsthebunny, because even our heroes can have a long week.

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><p>After he fell off the cliff, Edmund Pevensie, King of Narnia, Duke of the Lantern Waste, felt like he had wasted his time on climbing lessons.<p>

Monkeys had taught him. Specifically the Monkey Lord, Samson, native to the Western Woods. Samson was an Orangutang with brilliant red hair and a silly grin that could just as easily turn into a fierce growl whenever Edmund erred on a climb. The unpredictability challenged and encouraged Edmund. Within weeks, he could almost keep up with his teacher. Almost. And those had been climbs in trees, with branches that could catch you on your way down.

Cliffs? Cliffs had no such luxury.

It was a straight drop. Fifteen feet. Not much to look up at, but at an awkward angle down, it was a dizzy mile.

Edmund fell on his outstretched arm, which snapped under him, and proceeded to bruise his shoulder, crack a rib, jar his hips and legs. Countless muscles torn. Numerous scratches. Possible concussion.

Dr. Saleni was not pleased with him.

"Climbs is for Animals. Manimals stays on the grounds!"

Edmund giggled. "Manimals."

Definite concussion, the worried Salamander concluded.

Thank Aslan that Peter (Edmund's mother, for all accounts and purposes) was out of the country. While Peter himself couldn't get at Edmund, he sent several Birds who recited half-hour spiels of worry and fussing and bouts of yelling that they obviously enjoyed relating to the bedridden young King.

After a while, he had to go on living with the windows shut. In the middle of the summer.

Edmund was also missing the use of his legs. He had been mummified on his return to Cair Paravel.

Occasionally, Lucy would come to visit him when she and Susan weren't completely preoccupied with ruling a country by themselves. Edmund felt bad for this. He tried to coerce Lucy into bringing him bills and issues so that he could read over them, but the medicines Saleni gave him made him sleepy, and he would doze off before he'd even finished the first line. It was his right arm that had broken; he couldn't write either.

"What a week!" he said sourly to his ceiling. He had kicked off his covers some time ago, spread eagle on the bed to diffuse the heat. Out of sheer boredom, he took to gingerly patting up and down his broken arm, try to localize the exact break by figuring out where the line of pain was.

It looked like most of his arm was broken. The soft bandages didn't do much to protect the wound against his pressing fingers.

He went on pressing and wincing for some mindless time.

But then something crashed through the window.

Something, or rather, _someone. _

Or rather, someone very much like an assassin who was dressed all in black, wielding two long daggers like- like-

Well. Edmund just didn't like how well the assumed assassin was wielding them.

"I've come to kill you!" bellowed the secretively dressed man. He waved the daggers around.

Edmund, wondering if this wasn't a side effect from the lastest concoction Saleni had shoved down his throat, pinched his broken arm. Hard.

"OUCH."

"I haven't killed you yet!" shouted the killer sullenly.

"Bother," said Edmund. He dizzily found his feet and fumbled for the fireplace poker, juggling it in his less-than-dexturous left hand.

"You see," yelled the man, "I believe that you're a very evil little snot and that you're still working for Jadis. So there. I've come to kill you! I will avenge my poor- OUCH!"

Edmund retreated from where he'd struck a heavy blow to the man's temple. "I haven't killed you yet," he said seriously.

Then it wasn't nearly so silly. The man, whoever he was, had decided that it would be best to give backstory _after _he had done away with the little snot. But, of course, if some like Peter had been present, they would have let the man know that Edmund was a rather hard snot to kill. Even with a broken arm.

They went at it, hammer and tongs- er- daggers and fireplace poker. All of the advantages were on the side of the man: sharp blades could kill far more easily than a fireplace poker. He had use of all of his limbs. His senses weren't dulled by medicine. And he was considerably taller.

But Edmund was annoyed. There wasn't really any other way the fight could have ended.

**OoOoOoOoO**

Peter was stepping off of the dock at the exact moment that the black-clothed man went soaring out of the top window. He screamed and flailed as he arced spectacularly over the wharf, and landed in the salty waters with a resounding SPLASH.

Flummoxed, Peter squinted at the window, seeing a pale, scowling figure throw what appeared to be a fireplace poker into the water after him.

"My arm!" gargled the man in the water. "I think my arm is broken!"

"GOOD!" bellowed the figure in the window. "NOW COME BACK UP HERE SO THAT WE CAN _REALLY _FIGHT!"

It was then that a miracle happened: the nameless man had an immediate change of heart and discovered that he didn't want revenge so badly after all. After he politely (though rather quickly) declined King Edmund's offer, he doggy paddled down the coast until he was in Archenland.

There are less bad weeks in Archenland. And much fewer windows to be thrown from.


	5. Marshy Camp of Good Cheer

**The Marshy Camp of Good Cheer**

**by Tonzura123**

**Disclaimer: Okay, so I recently watched the hokey 90's BBC version of **_**The Silver Chair **_**and I finally clicked with the Marsh Wiggles. I don't own 'em, but I'd sure like to.**

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><p>It wasn't that Peter had never seen a Marsh Wiggle before- it was that he had never had to handle an entire CAMP of them. Alone. Injured. Leagues from home.<p>

Oh, he was in Narnia, all right. But a far cry from Cair Paravel.

And speaking of crying...

"I shouldn't wonder if it becomes infected," lamented Dimple Flump. He was the Marsh Wiggle Chief. His most important duty was visiting the almost-dead, which involved a lot of salutary rounds through the camp to healthy and hurt alike. He was making an extra effort for Peter.

The Marsh Chief stared glumly at Peter's face, where the tiniest of nicks gleamed red against the bandage on his cheek. Peter figured that it had come from some sort of debris- Giants love to throw things. Sharp things. Heavy things. Screaming things. One of these had barely grazed the High King, but according to Marshwiggle medicine the prognosis was very bleak. The High King of Narnia was most likely to fall victim to a gruesome and slowly quick death.

"I give you a month," said Dimple Flump. "Two weeks of feeling fine, a week for it to fester mysteriously, and six days for you to heroically ignore your pain."

"And on the last day, I die?" wondered Peter.

"Oh no," said Dimple Flump. "Then it becomes too late to undo the horrible damage it's done to your face. You will live the rest of your long life as a feared hermit, shunning sunlight, growing madder and madder until you either throw yourself out of a window (accidentally killing someone you love) or someone you love mistakes you for a demon and runs you through."

"Wonderful prospects," Peter nodded. "Will I live to be a hundred, do you think?"

Dimple Flump slumped. "Two hundred, I shouldn't wonder. One hundred and fifty of it in solitude and fifty on the run from your own people."

"Excellent. Brilliant. What about my gory leg, though?"

"Oh," said Dimple Flump. "That."

They looked to the massacred limb swaddled like a mummy atop the covers. It had been torn to shreds by a Flying Sharp Thing that had turned out to be a bellowing Rhino. The Rhino was really, very sorry and kept breaking his massive head through the flaps of the medical tent to apologize. Peter told him it was fine, and that if he'd been thrown by a Giant, he'd probably be flailing around a lot, too without much mind for who was under him.

"Invalid, no doubt," decided Dimple Flump. "They'll have to chop it. And you'll likely have to use something rusty if all this wet air keeps up. Or you could die from pneumonia."

"No two-hundred years?"

"Not a day."

In light of his almost-certain doom, Peter found this to be a great relief.

A large Rhino head burst into the tent, his nigh-blind eyes watery. "Really, your Majesty, if there's anything that I can do-"

"-Out!" moaned Dimple Flump. "Can't you see you're bringing in dangerous floating diseases that will only aggravate his condition?"

"I'm so sorry!" lowed the Rhino. He disappeared from sight again, though Peter could hear him sobbing through the tent.

"Oh, Roldolfo, you ass!" Peter called as he threw himself back on his pillows. "I'll be perfectly fine! Please, do stop crying. I'm all right! Really!"

There was simply no consoling the great charger. Peter tried not to look too sourly at Dimple Flump.

"Shall I send word to the Cair that King Edmund is to succeed you?" the Marsh Chief asked. "If the weather doesn't kill our messenger, it could reach His Majesty by late Tuesday. Unlikely, but slimly possible."

"No," said Peter. "No, er, death messages today, thanks. Do me a favour and wait 'til I'm dead, all right?"

Clearly, this was the peak of optimism in Dimple Flump's eyes, but nevertheless,"Very well, Your Majesty. Sleep well, if that's at all possible."

With a deep bow and a deeper sigh, the Chief departed, leaving Peter's tent a little brighter.

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><p><strong>AN: Peter's turn for a bad week! He's definitely got more patience for this sort of thing than Ed does, that's for sure. **

**Hope you're all having a lovely week!**

**As Always,**

**-Tonzura123**


	6. Exchange Rate

**"Exchange Rate"**

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><p>As one, the three siblings stop chewing and look at one another.<p>

Then simultaneously turn away and spit.

"Sweet Lion!" gasps Peter.

"Blergh," says Lucy.

Susan tries to cover up by wiping delicately at her mouth, but even she cannot completely wipe the disgust from her face. "_Why_ does our good brother have such terrible taste?"

"I'm insulted," says Peter. "Really, actually insulted."

Lucy, who is wiping her tongue with a handkerchief, can only grunt in agreement.

"What the devil are you three doing?" comes a new voice, as Edmund walks into the small parlor. His silver crown dangles from one hand.

"Nothing!" says Susan. She smiles brightly as Peter sneaks behind their brother to toss the box into the fireplace. "Just talking!"

Edmund looks to Lucy, who is still viciously scrubbing at her tastebuds. "Uhuh."

"Ed!" Peter grabs his brother by the arm and steers him around. "How did the meeting go? Did you ask them about the port disputes?"

"I thought we decided that wasn't an issue for the council."

"Well, we should. Our trade could be fundamentally damaged if we can't work this out! Come on- we'll go back and catch them before they all head home."

Edmund allows himself to be dragged out, asking curiously, "Do you smell someone burning sugar?"

"Nope!"

Peter closes the door behind them, and Susan collapses onto the couch.

"Well, at least we know what we're worth now."

Lucy spits one more time, just to be certain, and then throws her hanky into the fire with the rest of the Turkish Delight.

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><p>AN: Another silly drabble~ Turkish Delight isn't as bad as I've written it here. It's actually pretty tasty! But definitely not an even trade for three siblings.

Here's hoping your finals go well!

As Always,

-Tonzura123


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